Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Wire the temperature probes controller to the patch panel... and bring the power in through a consumption meter so that I can track and record power usage...

Fire it all up... and establish the baseline fish tank temperature (shows as T3... actually wired incorrectly... subsequent photos will show it as T2).....

12 degrees as the starting point.... brrrr... barely warm enough to keep Silver Perch alive... probably wouldn't be eating anyway...

Kick the pump in... and check for leaks... and controller function....

Next day.... siliconed all the fittings... tidied up the wiring... connected the fish tank probe to the right terminal (T2).... All looks good...

And just as well.... looking a bit gloomy out to see (east)...about 15:00 ...

This is the normal sunlight exposure around that time... (next day)...

Ok.. first day of trial....20th July...

Tank started at 12 degrees this morning... a very cloudy day..

By 15:00... the tank (1500ltrs) had reached a temp of 14 degrees (T2) ...

But with the sun basically obscured and descending behind the housing line... the header tank (T1)... wasn't budging past 17 degrees...

The controller only operates the pump when a temp differential of 6 degrees exists between the header tank (T1) and the fish tank (T2)...

21st July... a better day... but still cold overnight... started the day back at 12 degrees 09:00

!5:00.. tank temp (T2) .... 14 degrees...

Header tank at 19 degrees...just a degree short of kicking in... sun fading..

Another cold night... tank back to 13 degrees... ...

And the day wasn't much better.... total cloud cover all day... 15:00.. tank only 14 degrees...
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Not much hope of the array kicking in again... header tank only 18 degrees...

My bad... the temp differential between T1 and T2 is set to 8 degrees...

Had several days of very ordinary weather... raining on and off, basically total cloud cover..

While the odd day showed some temperature gain... I never got above 18 degrees... and would lose it all overnight... not as promising as i had hoped...

Rained all night... bit of a blessing... tank temp this morning was 13 degrees...

But with sun out and no cloud for the first time since testing.... the header tank was above 21 degrees at 09:00...

By 15:30... the tank was 18 degrees (T2)....

But more importantly the header tank was at 26 degrees.. and trigger another pump cycle...

Now that's more like it...

Another good day.. although the tank dropped back to 16 degrees overnight...

By 16:00... it was up to 19 degrees...

Falling off to 18 degrees by 18:00....

At least it was beginning to show some promise...

23rd July... topped out at 19 deg... with rain setting in arounf 17:30 (T2 = 18)...

And the temperature falling... I decided to cover the tank...

To see if I could preserve some of the gains overnight... or at least limit any fall due to the weather...

The combination of cloud cover overnight (as opposed to clear cold nights the previous week)... and the covering of the tank seem to have been beneficial...holding the tank above 16 degrees overnight...

Woke to a warm sunny morning... nudged above 20 degrees in the tank for the first time by 15:00... and held at 18 overnight...

Another good day followed and by 15:00... the tank was 21 degrees... nice... and again held at 18 overnight....

Next morning I departed for a week at Grafton...

Arrived home 22:00 on the 2nd August... having heard that the preceeding week had been cold and windy while I was away...

To my absolute surprise the tank was still 20 degrees at 22:00...

Over the last 14 days... the tank temperature has never fallen below 18 degrees overnight...

And for eleven of those days... has risen to over 20 degrees during the day... with five days peaking above 23 degrees...



Last night at midnight the tank was reading a toasty 21 degrees...

today... hit an all time high... 25 degrees...

And still holding 24 degrees as of a minute ago... although the rain has set in...

Here's the results to date... charted from a spreadsheet...

Showing Min Air Temp, Max Air Temp and Tank Temp...


So .. thanks for your patience... I'll throw it open to comment and discussion...

And answer your questions as to how it all fits together and works...

So what do people think... is it worthwhile persuing... there are refinements and enhancements in progress...

Including the fitting of back reflectors that research ahs shown to result in a further 10-15 % gain in efficiencies....

One of the additional feature still to test is the ability to interface with any thermostatically controlled heat source... either by utilising a third probe and temp differetial settings...

Or by three seperately programmable timer periods... (ie overnight)...

And/or both... ie... temp diff will overide timer cycle... if temp diff falls below,,, then timer cycle will activate...